Introducing—Abu Bakarr Mansaray

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In his drawing Sector A’Bubak (1997), a fragmented fighter jet stands on bird legs, while Beyond Creation (A Great African Technique) (2001) depicts the bloody mandibles of an ant attached to an elaborate structure of gears, wires, bellows, blades, and a rocket.

His works on paper include detailed mathematical notations and text to indicate the machines’ formidable components, such as “Mercyless [sic.] hook for paralyzing humans,” “Trouble detector” and “Lever for doing invincibility.”

With titles like The Hell-Extinguisher II (1997) and Nuclear Telephone Discovered in Hell (2003), his drawings and wire models of intricate war machines protect against violence or perpetuate new forms of it, and reflect the brutality of a catastrophic decade of civil war in Sierra Leone, where Mansaray was born in 1970 and lives today.

Hell and evil loom large, trouble lurks and fear of wild animals and man—most violent of all beasts—pervades his works, though leavened by the humor inherent in their hyperbole.

After an intensive, self-guided study of science and engineering—but no formal art education—Mansaray began making traditional decorative toys out of wire and iron. Their design soon grew increasingly complex, and his output evolved into models of futuristic machines and their meticulous blueprints.

He was a refugee in the Netherlands for several years during the height of the war, but his style—which recalls comics, video games and action movies—remained consistent. His fascination with mythologies of hell and heaven, as well as extraterrestrial intelligence, explains why he refers to his creations as “ julumbu,” which, he says, “means beyond [the] human brain.”

Mansaray’s works may reflect the deliberate mechanics of real-life violence but are rooted in the imaginary—a realm that belongs as much to the engineer as the artist.

"Introducing—Abu Bakarr Mansaray" originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of Modern Painters magazine.